ARC Group Advisoryis seeing an increase in the software market for lean manufacturing and Six Sigma.

According to the group’s study the nearly doubling software market by 2010 is due to the strong competitive pressures on manufacturers and successes with Continuous Improvement (CI) solutions. In fact, the CI market alone will see a strong compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 12.7%.

ARC Research Director Ralph Rio pointed out that two the two high-growth areas will be electronic kanban and electronic value stream mapping. Continue reading…

Leading maker of consumer and industrial products,3M Brazil continues to seek improvement in their processes in terms of delivering quality pallets to itheir customers as well saving on costs. To be able to do this, they have decided to outsource its select pallet management activities to CHEP, the world leader in pallet and container pooling solutions.

Right now, 3M is already using CHEP for storing and transporting their finished products and raw material to the head office in Sumaré, Sao Paulo. So far, 3M is happy with the potential savings (63%) they will be enjoying compared to having its own storage and transport equipment, and they are assured of CHEP exceptional service such as tracking and good-condition equipment.

To determine whether CHEP services were appropriate for the company’s operations, 3M used Six Sigma processes, solicited feedback from wholesale and superstore retail customers and conducted a comprehensive reference call at the Brazilian facilities of a leading global consumer products company. During the review process, managers identified a chance to decrease loss of pallets and reduce the quantity of renewed equipment derived by costumer returns.

Over at Qualitas, Robert Thomson has an interesting discussion on ISO, TQM, and Six Sigma. Titled “The Battle of the Improvement Systems,” the article gives you a preview of what each improvement system is, how it is applied and benefits an organization, and most importantly, how ISO or TQM can work well with Six Sigma.

Let me share with you excerpts of how ISO or TQM can be combined with Six Sigma.

Combining Six Sigma with ISO
Six Sigma provides a methodology for delivering certain objectives set by ISO such as:

investigation of the cause of defects relating to product, process and quality system;

continuous improvement of the quality of products and services.

Combining TQM with Six SigmaSix Sigma is complementary to TQM because it can help to prioritize issues within a broader TQM program and provides the DMAIC framework which can be used to meet TQM objectives.

Is your quality system integrated with Six Sigma or do you apply the principles of TQM in a Six Sigma environment? What have been your experiences? Leave a comment below.

I’ve talked with a few Six Sigma companies and most of them started with TQM or ISO, or other improvement systems and choose which one works best for their organization. I think that’s the way it should be.

With ETO and Six Sigma, it’s Six Sigma that provides the unifying influence on engineering and manufacturing. As a result, there is a quality control system that ensures flexibility and consistency to deliver the highest quality manufacturing services and cost effective product delivery.

Take a look at the features of Six Sigma and ETO and what it can do both together.

Some key quality ETO challenges:

Rapid expansion and addition of new facilities

Increasing variety of manufactured products

A requirement to achieve and sustain for full ISO quality system certification

A need to reconcile disparate paper and electronic systems and tools used to plan, measure, and manage quality control

Boeing Blog is a blog by Randy Baseler, VP of marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The blog expands on what Randy shares with people about Boeing and its place in commercial aviation. You will read about what’s inside the Boeing organization, and insights into the commercial airplane business.

As of writing, the blog is 23 months old, with its pilot entry dated January 17, 2005. It is updated three to four times a month. Only Randy writes and his posts may be long or short depending on the topic, and probably gravity of the topic. Not many links to other blogs. If there are any links, they are to Boeing reports or projects.

Newsfeeds are through RSS and Atom. Comments are allowed and sort of centralized. When you want to comment, you have to specify the subject of the post you want to comment on. So at every entry, you don’t see the comment. You have to go to the comments archived yet. Comments are moderated and there are guidelines on commenting or use of the info and images on the blog. Overall, the blog is a very good resource on Boeing. Randy Baseler is not its marketing guru for nothing.

I keyed in “Boeing blogs” in Google and I found quite a number of blogs talking or mentioning about Boeing Blog. These mentions however are old. They were done mostly last year. Micro Persuasion for example, announced the second Boeing blog, Flight Test Journal with its last post was dated December 22, 2005. This blog was for engineers and test pilots of Boeing’s new 777-200LR Worldliner who wanted to talk about how they’re preparing the world’s longest-range commercial airplane ready for commercial service.

Going back to the Flight Test Journal, it was one interesting blog. Lasting only eight months, as long as the flight test of 777-200LR, I learned a lot about airline testing and all the nitty gritty, such as quality assurance and technicals, before an airplane is declared safe to fly. Even though, the blog is old, it’s still worth checking out for it is a well of good information.

I will research more and give you updates on Boeing Blog in the days to come.

Over at PharmaManufacturing.com, Ronald D. Snee, Ph.D., principal of Tunnell Consulting, Inc., shared that pharmaceutical manufacturing faces a lot of competition from abroad and from generics. Thus, professionals in this field see the need to reduce costs, and have blockbuster products in the pipeline, and most importantly improve manufacturing processes.

Despite this known need, these professionals hesitate to use process improvement strategies such as Lean Manufacturing, Six Sigma, or a combination of the two. That’s not the end, though.

Identify and demonstrate the effectiveness and value of your process improvements

Select and pursue the next project

Make improvement part of your organization’s infrastructure and, ultimately, its culture.

To me, if you are able to work on a process improvement like this, why not take it a step further and launch a Six Sigma or a Lean Six Sigma deployment? Six Sigma sounds daunting, well, in fact it may be is. Some practitioners even acknowledge that Six Sigma is a huge animal. However, I believe that if you have the focus and the discipline, and that you see the need and value of Six Sigma in your organization, then you won’t mind the challenges ahead.